Victims' family OK with plea deal in death penalty case

Published 5:30 am, Thursday, July 7, 2011

The family of two victims who were robbed and shot in 2008 agreed to a plea bargain in a death penalty case this week after saying they worried about a Houston judge's controversial rulings, prosecutors said Thursday.

Huong Thien Nguyen, a 34-year-old mother of two, died in June 2008 after she and her sister, My Huong Nguyen, had been shot by John Edward Green as the pair returned home. Investigators believe Green robbed the women, making it a capital murder case that fell in state District Judge Kevin Fine's court.

Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos did not mention Fine's name in a release issued by her office in response to questions about why the death penalty trial was scuttled a week before it started, but she said they were concerned.

Related Stories

"The victim's husband and sister (who is also a victim in this case) related that they wanted finality and certainty of sentence," according to the release. "They expressed grave concerns regarding the pretrial proceedings and previous rulings in this case. We shared their concerns."

Last year during a routine pretrial hearing, Fine surprised the legal community by granting a motion to declare the procedures surrounding the death penalty in Texas unconstitutional.

After an avalanche of criticism from Gov. Rick Perry, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and others, Fine rescinded his ruling opting to hear evidence on the issue.

Months of legal wrangling by the district attorney's office, including a failed recusal motion, ended the hearing after two days when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals sided with Lykos.

The final juror in the July 18 death penalty trial was selected Wednesday after weeks of individual questioning.

Late in the day, defense attorneys floated an offer to let their client plead guilty to murder in exchange for a 40-year sentence. They said they were shocked when prosecutors accepted it. The plea was a bargain in a county where death penalty suspects routinely are denied the offer to admit guilt in exchange for life without parole.

Courthouse observers say Lykos took the offer to take Fine out of the equation.

"Prosecutors live in fear of a judge who will make a major evidentiary ruling and basically throw out the case because double jeopardy attaches, and they can't retry the case," said University of Houston law professor Adam Gershowitz. "I'm guessing that they think he's enough of a wild card that they think that could happen."

Fine could not be reached for comment late Thursday.

Gershowitz, a death penalty opponent who has criticized Fine for his rulings, said prosecutors have to be cautious because they do not get a second chance.

"They could think that he may be upset about the way things turned out and be predisposed to not rule in their favor on a number of issues," Gershowitz said. "That's not to say that he would, but when you're talking about someone charged with capital murder potentially going free, they have to take that in to consideration."

Defense lawyers for Green said hearings had been scheduled to try to convince Fine to suppress evidence in the case that involved fingerprints, eyewitnesses and snitches.

If Fine had allowed the evidence, Green's best deal probably would have been life without parole, his lawyer Bob Loper said. But it could have gone the other way.

"He may have suppressed some of their evidence, which would have hurt their case and they may have had some apprehension," Loper said. He discounted the influence Fine may have had on prosecutors.

"It had to have some effect on them, but saying they are scared of Kevin Fine, that would probably be going a bit far," Loper said.